TOW The Cooking Lessons
by imagineif
Summary: Monica discovers that Emily can't cook and decides to give her lessons. A compromise is reached.
1. Burning Water

**TOW the Cooking Lessons**

AN: I flagged the existence of this episode in "Just For Us" (which has a continuity problem I'll fix up later) This is part of an alternative season five which begins with TOW Ross catches up with Emily

Ross came in through the front door of his apartment and called,

'Hi sweetie!' Emily, who had been in the bedroom came rushing out to greet him.

'Ross!' Ross dropped his bag and they kissed for a minute.

'So you still miss me?' he teased. He had only been back at work for a week after his convalescence from a serious accident outside Heathrow, and they had not yet fallen into any particular routine. Emily had not yet found a job, and she had only started looking for work after Ross returned to work himself.

'I could say the same for you,' she teased back.

'What were you doing?' Ross asked.

'Just putting some clothes away. Why don't you go in and change out of those clothes, and I'll see to dinner?' Emily suggested, going over to the hall table and picked up some takeaway menus.

'I'm not in the mood for anything heavy,' Ross said, 'I'd prefer something light tonight.'

'All right. Cheese on toast?' They both paused. The last time she had tried that, it had taken three attempts to get it right. The second attempt had actually caught fire and the smell of burnt cheese had lingered in the apartment for days.

'Maybe not,' Ross said.

'I'll boil you an egg,' Emily said.

'Great,' Ross said, and went to the bedroom. Emily filled a saucepan with water and set it on the stove. After turning on the stove, she went to the fridge and took out some eggs and some vegetables. As she was rinsing the vegetables under the tap, the doorbell rang. It was Monica. After exchanging greetings, Ross came out of the bedroom in more casual clothes and the greeting occurred all over again.

'I just dropped by to say hello,' Monica said, as they all sat down.

'By the way, my legs haven't fallen off,' Ross said sarcastically, in case Monica thought she could slide back into the over protectiveness that she'd been guilty of recently. Emily had learned her lesson, but Monica had a streak of stubbornness.

'Can't I even come by and see my own brother without him making sarcastic remarks? Is this how he treats you?' Monica asked Emily.

'Oh I just ignore him when he acts like that,' Emily said.

'Oh yeah?' Ross challenged, 'that's only because I don't make sarcastic remarks to you.'

'Hmm, that's true,' Emily said with a smile. 'But if you do, I'll ignore you.'

'I came to talk to you both about going over to our parents next weekend,' Monica said, and then sniffed.

'What's that smell?' Both Emily and Ross looked at her in puzzlement.

'I can't smell anything,' Ross said, but Monica had already got up and had moved to the kitchen, where she sensed the smell had come from. She saw the saucepan on the stove was empty and red hot.

'You've burned this saucepan!' She exclaimed. She took the saucepan off the stove and put it in the sink, running cold water on it. 'What was in it?' Ross and Emily had followed her to the kitchen.

'Just water,' Emily said. Monica turned around to face her, staring.

'What? I can't believe this, I'm looking at a person who can burn water.'

'I just forgot it was there.'

'What were you going to do in there?' Monica asked. She couldn't help noticing that the kitchen was looking rather unused.

'I was going to boil some eggs. We just wanted something light this evening,' Emily said.

'I'll make you both a quick omelette,' Monica said, throwing open the fridge. 'Where is your food?'

'I've got stuff for salad out already,' Emily said, pointing at the things she'd laid out on the side bench. Monica looked in the fridge. She was appalled.

'But there's nothing in this fridge except milk and soft drink.' Monica opened the freezer and saw microwave meals. She pointed at them. 'What – Are these doing here?'

'Oh we have those if we don't feel like a take away,' Ross said. Monica looked at Emily. Emily was the one who was staying at home at the moment so she asked her,

'Don't you cook anything at all?'

'Well I was doing some eggs,' Emily said.

'What else can you do?' Monica demanded.

'Make soup.'

'That's good – no wait, you mean from a packet don't you?' Emily nodded.

'Of course. That's how soup is made, isn't it?' Monica stared at this heresy. She had so much work to do here.

'So you can't actually cook – I know that, you burnt water. Why didn't your mother teach you?' Monica asked. Emily's face fell. Ross put an arm around her.

'Emily's mother died when she was twelve, and then she went to boarding school. Her stepmother didn't teach her anything.'

'Oh,' Monica said, chastened.

'Don't tell Joey that I went to boarding school, he'll only get excited,' Emily said.

'No,' Monica said. 'Did you do home economics?'

'No,' Emily said, 'I don't know how to do any more than boil and egg and make toast.' She decided not to own up to cheese on toast, thinking that Monica might regard a 33 percent success rate as somewhat inadequate.

'You need to learn how to cook,' Monica said firmly. Everyone needed to learn how to cook. Not everyone would be able to attend one of her restaurants, and certainly they would not be able to achieve her standards, but they needed to eat properly in the meantime. All frozen meals should be banned, in Monica's opinion. 'You're not working yet, you've got time. You can learn a few things.'

'Sign up for cooking lessons?' Emily asked.

'You don't have to sign up, I'll teach you,' Monica said. She was looking forward to it already. She would be able to teach Emily just how to feed Ross properly.

'Er Monica,' Ross said, 'Maybe she'd better have proper lessons.'

'Are you saying my lessons wouldn't be proper?'

'N-no, not at all,' Ross said as Monica rounded on him.

'That I can't cook as well as a, a cookery teacher?'

'No, you're better, but you might be too advanced for Emily,' Ross said, trying to appease her.

'Are you saying I'm stupid?' Emily turned on him.

'No, no sweetie but Monica is…'

'Is?' Monica asked dangerously.

'Great,' Ross said, to get himself out of his dangerous corner. 'Perfect.' He saw them both looking at him sceptically and said, 'Well, what do I know? Don't ask me!'


	2. The Hard Sell

**The Hard Sell**

The room was dark, the bed was warm and the occupants were fast asleep. Emily was in a deep and dreamless sleep. Ross was dreaming that he was giving a demonstration at the museum.

'Dinosaurs,' he said in his dream, 'Had culture. Evidence that they did the paintings in the Lescaux caves has recently been confirmed…' As his dream voice spoke, his dream mind wondered how he knew this fact, although he was not greatly surprised at the fact itself, because, as his dream voice was saying, in all seriousness, 'We all know that the Brachiosaurus had opposable thumbs.' Of course. The audience was all nodding, and he heard the sound of a doorbell, which he knew meant that even more people were wanting to attend the lecture. 'We're – ' he called out.

He sat up suddenly, fully awake.

' – full,' he said, at the sound of the doorbell. The room was still dark. The clock said 5:20. That dream was pretty intense, he thought, wondering why he'd dreamed that the museum had doorbells indoors. The doorbell rang again. That was not the after effect of a dream, that was the real thing.

Who wanted to ring the doorbell at 5:20 in the morning? He reached a hand out beside him and found Emily, who didn't move at his touch. He heard a fire alarm in the distance, outside the curtained windows of their bedroom, and the thought that there might be a fire in their building made him shake Emily vigorously.

'Wake up, Em!' Ross exclaimed.

'?' Emily said as she went through the process of who-am-I-where-am-I-why-have-I-been-woken-up-so-suddenly.

'Someone's ringing the doorbell. It could be a fire!'

'What?' She jumped out of bed and tripped over the pyjama bottoms that she'd kicked out of bed.

'Emily!' Ross exclaimed, rushing out of bed to help her up. 'Are you all right?'

'Think so,' she said, still sounding groggy from sleep. The doorbell rang again. 'Hadn't we better see who it is?' She started groping around for the light and Ross switched it on for her.

'I'll go,' he said and went out to answer the door.

Monica was at the doorway.

'At last, I thought you'd never get the door,' she said coming in. Ross stared. Something had to be seriously wrong for her to be over at the apartment at such an unGodly hour.

'What's wrong?' Ross asked. Monica was being amazingly calm about whatever disaster had just befallen her.

'Wrong?' she said, as Emily came into the main area, wearing a dressing gown.

'Monica!' she exclaimed, 'What's wrong?' Monica looked at both of them as though they were both strange.

'Why are you both asking me if something's wrong?' Her hand flew to her face, 'Oh my God, do I look sick?'

'No,' Emily said, but Monica rushed to the mirror to be sure. 'It's just that you're early to be visiting.'

'Very early,' Ross said, thinking Emily was being too restrained.

'Oh I know I'm a little early,' Monica said.

'A little!' Ross exclaimed, 'Do you know what time it is? It's 5:20!' Maybe a bit later, but not late enough for Monica to call it a reasonable time. Monica was frowning.

'But I said we'd be going shopping today, you both knew I was coming over. I said five thirty.' There was a silence.

'Five thirty,' Emily said. She had indeed said five thirty, but Emily had thought what most people thought when they spoke of meeting at five thirty. 'But that was five thirty pm.'

'Oh you can't buy good fruit and vegetables at that time of the day,' Monica laughed. 'You have to get over to the markets in good time, before the regular shoppers get there. Of course I mean five thirty in the morning.' Both Ross and Emily were staring at her. 'I'll wait here while you get dressed,' Monica said, sitting down. Ross and Emily exchanged a look. Emily gave a slight shrug and went back to the bedroom to dress.

On the way to the markets, Monica explained her theory of shopping for fruit and vegetables to Emily, who listened politely, even though she didn't recognise many of the names of some of the vegetables that Monica was talking about. Monica was pleased that she had such an attentive audience.

She hadn't been so pleased yesterday when, in a flush of enthusiasm for culinary reform, she had tried to interest Rachel in the project.

'I could fix both of you up together. It would do you good. You could use a little help in that department.' There was another, ulterior motive of Monica's involved. It seemed to her that relations between Rachel and Emily were still not far advanced from a mere truce. They tolerated each other, and interacted with each other in company, but didn't seek each other out especially. Someone always had to be the glue to get them together, but it wasn't always simple. Monica knew that she had to be careful, dividing her attention carefully between best friend and her sister in law. She knew that Rachel had not liked the number of shopping trips that Monica had taken alone with Emily, although she hadn't gone so far as to say so, because it would sound childish to complain. But that didn't mean she didn't have the feelings. Ever since she had sensed this feeling of Rachel's, Monica had been careful to invite her to every single thing she did with Emily, unless there was a good reason not to.

Rachel hadn't reacted with any interest in the cooking project, so Monica brought out what she had thought would be the hook.

'We're going shopping tomorrow, do you want to come?' She succeeded in raising a slight interest.

'When and where?' Rachel asked, 'I might have to stay back late at work tomorrow.'

'That won't be a problem,' Monica said confidently, and told her.

'I don't think I'll butt in,' Rachel said quickly, 'You two need to bond.' Of course, the real reason was that Rachel hadn't wanted to get up so early. But it was great to get up early, Monica thought, you got so much more out of the day. She felt sorry for people, commuting to work at 8:30 in the morning. She too would look miserable if she hadn't done anything with her day by then.

At the markets, she explained to Emily how to choose tomatoes and then had her choose some.

'No,' she said, shaking her head, at what Emily had selected, 'I know those look nice, but see, they don't had the firmness that's required.'

'How about these ones?' said a woman who had been eavesdropping on the lesson. She gave two to Monica who said,

'This one is good, that one is not so good. See if you can tell the difference.' She handed the tomatoes back to the other woman who said,

'Ah, yes, I see it now. This one has a better consistency.'

'There aren't many good tomatoes on this stall at all,' Monica said.

'Lady,' said the stall owner, 'How can I have any good tomatoes when people like you come and paw over the stock?'

'I have not been pawing over the stock,' Monica exclaimed, outraged. 'I've just been checking it…'

'Checking it!' the stall owner said, 'You've been making tomato sauce! And defaming me. You're losing me customers.' Whether he was losing customers, he was certanly gaining an audience. 'You can pay for those tomatoes you and your friend have been pawing over and beat it,' the stall owner demanded.

But Monica thought that the morning had been a success, in spite of that. Emily had learned a few things. It was a pity that they had ended up buying so much stuff that they didn't need, but the stall keepers were so unreasonable about education. Even so, she was ready to do something with all of the stuff they had bought, but when Emily fell asleep on the subway, she admitted that perhaps, they might start the actual cooking lessons on another day.


	3. Let Them Eat Cake

**Let them eat cake**

Chandler was just on his way up to see Monica when he heard Emily shout,

'I don't care! I'll live on take out for the rest of my life! And you can stick your bloody scales up…' a sudden noise from outside blocked out the rest of it. Then Emily, furious and fighting back tears pushed past him in the corridor.

'Hey,' he said, catching her.

'Hey,' she said, still trembling with anger, but trying to be civilised.

'What's up?'

'I don't know how you can stand her,' Emily said, 'I really don't. I hope your collar is spotless, she'll be sure to check.' Emily pulled herself out of his grasp and stormed off. Oh dear, Chandler thought, worried, they'd had a fight.

He found Monica, cheeks red, tidying up in the kitchen.

'What's up between you and Emily?' Chandler asked.

'I can't believe her, she can't follow the simplest of instructions and when I try and correct her, she becomes abusive and walks out, just like that! Here I am, trying to help out and this is the thanks I get.' He saw Rachel emerge from her room with her magazine and sit down on the couch. She was watching them out of the corner of her eye.

'Oh,' Chandler said, 'What did she do wrong?'

'She measured out seventeen and a half ounces of flour! Can you believe that?' Monica exclaimed. Chandler blinked, and Monica added impatiently, 'It was supposed to be seventeen and three quarter ounces.' Chandler blinked again.

'So she was short a quarter of an ounce, so what?'

'So what? It makes all the difference. Without that extra quarter ounce, the cake will be too insubstantial.'

'You're teaching her to make cake? I thought you were teaching her how to make dinner,' Chandler said.

'Cake is a good place to start in cooking,' Monica said.

'I'm not complaining, if I can have what you make,' Chandler said, 'In fact, if she's a slow learner and you keep her on cakes, I'll be very happy. So will Joey when he finds out. But you're not telling me that a measuring problem made her walk out? She was crying.'

'I don't know why she got upset, just because I corrected her,' Monica said, 'It was just like that, out of the blue.'

'You shouted at her,' Rachel said, not looking up from the magazine.

'I did not!'

'Did too, I heard you from my room,' Rachel said. '"Oh My God, how can you be so stupid, can't you even get this simple thing right?"' Her approximation of Monica's voice as she said this made Chandler look at her sharply. Much as he loved her, this was the less appealing aspect of her nature. Aware that she had sounded back, Monica tried to explain,

'Well, I shouldn't have called her stupid, but I've been having a really hard time with her. She just hasn't got anything. I mean she was boiling something that was supposed to be simmered only.'

'Monica,' Rachel said, 'I don't really know the difference myself.'

'You don't know anything about cooking,' Monica said.

'Well neither does she,' Rachel pointed out. 'That's why she was here.'

'It's easy, I'll show you.' Monica put some pans on the stove. She'd prove them wrong. She was being reasonable, Emily was being unreasonable. 'Now you watch.'

'Monica,' Rachel protested.

'No no, you're telling me I'm not being fair to her – I want you both to see that this is easy.' They waited while Monica demonstrated, 'Now that's a boil and that's a simmer. I'm going to get you guys to turn around and I'm going to test you.' Rachel and Chandler duly turned around and only looked when asked.

'This pot, is it boiling or simmering?' Monica asked.

'Boiling.' Chandler said.

'Simmering' Rachel said.

'It's boiling,' Monica said witheringly, 'See, that's too active to be simmering. We'll do it again.' They looked again.

'Boiling,' they both answered.

'Simmering,' Monica exclaimed, 'Look this is really simple…'

'No it isn't,' Rachel said. 'You need to be patient with us, and with Emily too.' Chandler just shrugged and said,

'It's all second nature to you but you've learned some really great skills. You've forgotten that if someone knows nothing and they don't have a particular flair for cooking, they'll find some of the finer distinctions hard to get, at first. Why don't you just loosen up? Seventeen ounces, eighteen ounces. Whatever.'

'Whatever?' Monica asked. 'I just told you what a difference that makes to a cake.'

'Is it really all that big a difference?' Chandler asked.

'Well if you tasted the two side by side,' Monica said. 'You'd see.'

'She doesn't have to be perfect Monica, just as long as she gets a cake out of it. I bet her cake would still look like a cake. It wouldn't be as good as your cake, because no-one can make cake like you, and no-one can learn to make cake even half as good as yours in one afternoon. But the first thing to do is to get her making the cake first, and then you can start teaching her how to make the cake better.'

'Where's the cake?' Joey asked. He had wandered in through the open doorway.

'There is no cake, Joey,' Rachel said. 'The cake making has stopped.'


	4. Coffee and Sympathy

**Coffee and Sympathy**

That afternoon, Emily was cleaning the apartment. It wasn't as though she had a particular mania for cleaning (like some people, she thought to herself). It was just that things needed to be done, once in a while. There was a happy medium between being a slob (or as her innocent grandmother called it, a slut) and being obsessive compulsive. Besides, the book she was reading had gone into a passage about cooking. The magazines she had in the house all features specials on cooking. It seemed that everything on the television was about cooking. Ross had decided to go into the museum because Emily was supposed to be out all day. So she cleaned.

When she heard the doorbell, she wondered whether it would be Monica. She wasn't sure what she was going to say to her, after this morning. She should not have lost her temper, even if Monica had called her stupid. She would have to apologise for the scales outburst. Monica ought to apologise for the stupid remark too. One thing was clear, Emily was not going to be taking lessons from Monica again, in anything.

She was surprised to find that it was Rachel, wanting to come in. The two of them had always had a distant relationship. The first time, it had been antagonistic, when Rachel had not warned her that she was planning to stand Emily up, until she had arrived, soaking wet from a rain storm on Rachel's doorstep. It had never been particularly friendly. She had found the going away party that Rachel had organised, the one where they played spin the bottle rather strange but she had had other things on her mind.

Then was the wedding and the aftermath. Rachel had gone there intending to ruin it, and she had. Then she had been prepared to go on a honeymoon with Ross. Then she had written him that letter. Monica had done a lot of work to build bridges between the three of them. Emily knew that after they had arrived back at New York, Ross had seen Rachel privately, because he had told her. Rachel had made herself scarce for a week after that, and Emily had almost wished that Rachel had gone for good, but for the anxiety that Monica had shown.

Then she started coming back to visit, and there had been that episode when she and Joey had taken Ross out of the apartment, while he was still on crutches and supposed to be resting. Then Rachel had found a boyfriend and she no longer seemed to have a strange attitude to Ross. There were still touchy areas though, like with Monica, where Rachel seemed to be very attentive to how much time Monica was giving Emily. Emily did not want to monopolise Monica but nor did she want to see less of her just to keep Rachel comfortable. She supposed that Rachel would be happy about today.

"Can I have a coffee?" Rachel asked.

"If you can trust me," Emily said, still feeling annoyed about the measuring incident. "I might put a quarter of a teaspoon too much coffee in." Rachel waved a hand airily, to dismiss any such concerns, and Emily started to make it.

"Monica gets like that, take no notice," Rachel said.

"It's not nice being called stupid."

"She's very passionate about getting things exactly right. And you're responsible for her brother's welfare, so she's especially uptight about that." Rachel laughed gently. Things had not been easy for her either, and she couldn't help seeing the funny side. "You didn't think marrying into the Geller family was going to be easy did you?" Emily handed Rachel her coffee and sighed.

"I didn't think anything. I just wanted to marry Ross." She thought suddenly of how Judy treated Monica. Things might yet get more complicated, if she did something that her mother in law didn't like. Or if her father in law met her father again. Luckily the wedding quarrel had been patched up, in the aftermath of the accident, but she wondered if they might argue again if they met, given enough alcohol. That was one reason why she hardly touched the stuff herself. "I don't regret that for a minute."

"No," Rachel said. Though she knew, Ross wasn't perfect. How would Emily handle it if Ross got jealous over someone? "Look I think Monica realises that she was a bit too advanced for you." Emily shot her a look.

"Are you saying I'm stupid?"

"If you are, I am," Rachel said. "I can't cook."

"Then why didn't you join in the lessons?"

"Because I've known Monica a lot longer than you have," Rachel said.

"She's right though," Emily said, "We can't live on microwave food." Rachel shrugged. She, personally, thought the inventor of pop tarts a genius. "I have to learn to cook."

"Why don't you look up people who teach cooking classes in the phone book? Maybe that would work."

"True," Emily said.

"Maybe they are something that you and Ross could do. There's no reason why you should be the one who has to do all the cooking. What if you get a job? Why doesn't your uncle get you a job at Bloomingdales?"

"It's red tape," Emily said, "I still have to have a valid green card, and that's taking a while. Anyway, there's nothing at Bloomingdales that I can do."

"What do you do?" Rachel asked.

"I work in the travel industry. Putting together packages. Unfortunately my firm was only small and doesn't have a branch here, otherwise it would be easier."

"Oh that's why you could get so many flights to New York, they're so cheap for you."

"It still costs a lot if you take a lot of flights," Emily said.

"So tell me where you've been," Rachel said, and that was how Ross found them when he came home.

for those who have not read my other fics, this is the point that it started to become AU


	5. A Compromise with cake

**A Compromise**

Monica and Emily did not talk to each other again that weekend. Monica avoided asking Rachel what she said to Emily and Rachel hadn't volunteered any information. When she had finally succumbed, and asked Rachel for information, she had merely said that Emily was fine, and no, they hadn't talked about Monica and incidentally, had she seen Rachel's other shoe.

It was so awkward. This was the first disagreement of any kind that she and Emily had had and as with anyone she didn't know well, it made her nervous, especially when she wasn't completely confident that she was right. At least not completely right. She was completely right about cooking, but she had been forced to acknowledge that it was difficult, or at least difficult to achieve the proper standard. Maybe, just maybe, teaching someone meant settling for less, to begin with. Emily might have to make mistakes, but it was excruciating for Monica to have to watch them.

On Monday afternoon, Ross called Monica and said,

"Are you free tonight?"

"Sure," Monica said.

"We'd like you to come over and have dinner with us." Not sure how much of the disagreement had worked its way to Ross, who didn't sound like he'd heard anything at all, she said,

"That would be nice." She wondered what they were going to be eating.

"You could bring Rachel along if you like," Ross said.

"Fine, I'll ask her when she gets home," Monica said, feeling relieved. Rachel would make a good fourth.

So in some apprehension, she and Rachel turned up for dinner.

"Emily's done a great job," Ross said as they arrived, "She made it all herself."

"Oh," Monica said faintly.

"You've taught her so well," Ross said, "I've been looking forward to this all day."

"It's just a pasta sauce," Emily said, "And a cake."

"Oh, Joey would be sorry to have missed that," Rachel said. "He was looking forward to having cake on Saturday."

"He's already been by," Emily said. "He ate half of one already."

"He ate a half of a whole cake?" Monica was feeling shy, but this statement had to be questioned.

"Yes. It didn't rise very well. At all in fact. He said it was still cake and maybe it wouldn't be so fattening." There was a pause as each of them considered the sense of this.

"What did you do with the other half?" Rachel asked.

"He took it away with him, but I really think he should throw it away. It can't be at all nice to eat. But this one looks better. I realise what I did wrong, so it rose."

"Well, trial and error can sometimes do the trick," Monica said, hoping that number of errors she'd be subjected to was as low as possible.

"Come on," Ross said, "Sit down and we'll get started." So they sat round the table and had dinner, which wasn't the worst meal Monica had ever had. In the salad bowl, inexpertly mixed together, she saw the signs of her own work – nice crisp vegetables selected from the market that she wouldn't be ashamed to use, and afterwards, with cake that was a lot better than the one Joey had sampled, Monica said,

"Well, you've made a good start here."

"It worked anyway," Emily said, "Though we can't have pasta every night because that would be boring."

"That's fine," Ross said, "Monica will teach you something else soon." Monica and Emily exchanged a look. So Emily hadn't said anything to Ross.

"Er yes," Monica said. "This is only the beginning." Emily followed on closely with,

"Actually Ross, Monica is too advanced for me. I'm not a very good student, and I don't want to bother her, so I signed up for some classes which start next week."

"What?" Ross frowned.

"Oh Emily, you're not a bother," Monica said.

"I'm afraid I am," she said.

"No, no, no. Really, you're not. It's just – I didn't realise how little you knew."

"Even though you caught me burning water," Emily smiled.

"Burning water?" Rachel interjected, "How do you burn water?"

"I'll tell you when you work out what simmering is," Monica said.

The End


End file.
